


looking a little long in the hair there

by poalimal



Series: WIP Amnesty [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, old fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-15 00:10:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15400650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poalimal/pseuds/poalimal
Summary: Suppose, a week before the letters came, Petunia tries to shave Harry's hair again.





	1. Chapter 1

 

Suppose, a week before the letters came, Petunia tries to shave Harry's hair again. This time she tries to be kind with him -- as kind as she can bear -- holding his head firm over the sink as she tells him all about the special dinner they were having to celebrate Duddy-kin's half birthday.

'We want to look neat, don't we, hmm?' she says, forcing her lips to stretch up.

Harry, whose birthday will have passed unremarked for nine-going-on-ten years, keeps his eyes down. Yes, Aunt Petunia, he says, of course, Aunt Petunia. His scalp feels cold; looking at his empty face in the mirror later that night, he can almost see where he looks like her.

The nose, mostly; perhaps the ears, too.

The next morning his hair grows back twice as long.

He spends the week getting rather a lot of letters yanked out of his hands.

Hagrid likes the look of him and so of course doesn't say anything about The Hair. He'd worried that Harry would be a little too much about himself -- not that that wouldn't be his right, as the Saviour, of course! It would just make it right difficult to talk to him, and to tell him what was what.

Harry Potter turns out to be like a wee Bloodpug cub, though, skinny and shaggy and terribly shy.

His hair hangs in his face, almost totally obscuring his scar. He knows nothing about nothing about Portkey etiquette, and clings to Hagrid wholesale when they whirl away from that dismal seaside shack.

'You're all right, then,' Hagrid says, patting him briskly on their way to Madam Fortescue's.

'What's that?' Harry says, wide-eyed and wondering at the bustle about him.

'Never you mind, lad,' says Hagrid.

 

* * *

 

So Harry's hair is quite long, yes? Long enough that it hides his scar. In fact, Ron Weasley doesn't realise who he's talking down to until half-way through their first conversation, when he finally figures out Harry's not just some poor confused Muggleborn.

By that time, he's already been quite condescending, explaining everything with a controlled superiority, and it's much too late to turn back. Anyway, Harry doesn't seem to mind: he just keeps plying him with questions until he has to go to the toilet.

Ron's quite nice, he thinks, ducking his head when three very tall girls squeeze past him; bit self-important, but rather good-natured beneath it all.

Two people who look around his age walk by him in the corridor without paying him any mind. Harry hunches his shoulders when he hears what they're talking about.

'--What if Harry Potter finds Trevor?' says the soft-faced boy, quite despairingly. Harry's not sure he'll ever get used to hearing his name spoken with such... _reverence_.

'I should hope he would return what's not his, Wizarding Saviour or no,' says the frizzy-haired girl, tossing her head.

Harry's face gets very warm and he finds himself ducking into an empty compartment.

Or...not so empty.

A body is laid out along one of the seats, robes draped this way and that. A magazine hides the figure's face from view - all Harry can see fully are the person's shoes. Dark purple, like Petunia's aubergines.

'Not now, Percival,' says the voice, with a rich, fluttering sigh. It's a girl, Harry realises; suddenly he is even more red-faced. 'I'm still cross with you.'

Harry, who by this point has only heard Ron complain half-heartedly about his brother 'Percy', does not know to whom she is referring. He does not say anything.

The girl snatches the magazine off of her face and sits half-up. The sunlight makes her blonde hair appear silver.

She stops moving when their eyes meet.

'You're not Percival,' she says, slowly, suspiciously. Something about the sharpness of her face reminds Harry forcibly of Petunia.

'I don't know who that is,' Harry says, with strictest honesty.

The girl's face brightens abruptly. (Not because she recognises him -- recall that Harry's scar is still hidden by his overlong hair.) 'Are you lost, young first year?' she croons, rounding her eyes ridiculously. 'Do you need me to assist you in a Prefectly manner?'

'...I was headed to the toilet,' Harry says, unimpressed. He's not a _baby_.

'But of course!' says the blonde girl, unfolding herself and standing at her full height. She is two whole heads taller than Harry. Harry dislikes her immensely. 'I remember my first time on the Express--what a whirlwind!' She slides open the compartment, runs straight into--

' _Ron_ ,' says Harry, with some relief.

'Malfoy?' says Ron, looking at the girl.

'Ronald,' says the girl named Malfoy, smirking slightly. 'Still the most useless Weasley, I see.' Ron blushes a miserable mottled red. Malfoy sends Harry a gleaming, conspiratorial look. 'Do the two of you know each other, then?' She shakes her head slowly, tsk-tsks at Harry. 'Careful falling in with the wrong sort, now.'

Harry bristles on Ron's behalf. 'I think I can figure out the wrong sort for myself, thanks,' he says, and in that moment (unbeknownst to him) his fringe pushes apart to reveal his scar.

Malfoy's smile drains away as if it had never been. 'Of course I would never think to question the judgement of our inestimable Saviour,' she says, blandly, almost as if she were talking to someone else. She sets that bright, focused look on Ron again, which is somehow even more annoying than anything she did before. 'If you see your brother before we arrive, please punch him for me.'

'Which one?' Ron says, whinging a bit, but in a comfortable, unembarrassed way. Harry is beginning to think he misread the situation some.

'Any of them,' says Malfoy, striding down the way Ron came. 'All of them, I don't care.'

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

  
'Incoming,' Ron says mildly, head near Harry's elbow - and that's the only warning any of them get before Dean and Cho burst in through the Common Room (somewhat clumsily, as they're too busy bickering to step fully over the picture frame) and fill up the air with the sound of their disagreements.

'I'm telling you, the ambient light completely changes the tone of the painting,' Dean is saying.

'And _I'm_ telling _you_ , that's precisely the point,' says Cho. 'I'm not sure if you were paying any attention in class--'

'Oh, would you leave off? The _one_ time I dozed off in class was because of you!'

Someone wolf-whistles. Dean and Cho trip over their Housemates in their haste to separate. Neville said Granger thinks it's like a theatrical thing -- rowing as performance art, or something. Whatever. Harry can't be bothered. At least, he's really trying not to be.

Dean's rallied himself up for a decent response: 'Was that was the night you decided you and Cedric wanted to go for a relaxing ride around the lake instead of doing your half of our practical? Refresh my memory, please, because I don't recall!'

Cho's face goes pink with fury. Harry catches himself staring and forces himself to concentrate on his Transfigurations essay. 'Yea, well, I suppose you'd _remember_ these kind of important details if you weren't so busy mooning over bloody Ginny _Weasley_.'

Ron coughs. 'Who is, I'm sure, a perfectly respectable girl,' Cho auto-corrects.

'Oh, hang Ginny Weasley!' Dean says, throwing his canvas bag hard at the couch. Ron coughs again. 'In a manner of speaking,' Dean adds.

'Ah, young love,' sighs Neville, who, unbeknownst to Ron, Cho and absolutely no one else, has been passing racy love letters to Ginny on the sly, Dean being the vehicle, Advanced Transfigurations being the setting.

'Who's in love?' says Granger, floating down the stairs. Padma strides down the stairs after her, smiling somewhat dopily, as she always does after she and have one Granger of their 'sessions'.

'Ask _Thomas_ ,' says Cho blandly, straightening her red and gold tie.

'Seamus, tell _Chang_ I'm taking yet another nap and will be unavailable for the foreseeable future,' says Dean, slumping against Seamus's side. Cho sits down close on his other side and flips open a huge book. Seamus tries to squirm out from between them but soon finds himself held fast on both sides.

Miserable bastard, Harry thinks to himself as he ducks up the stairs.

Malfoy is waiting for him in the room upstairs. She sends him a polite smile, sets a Stinging Hex on the top step and Buffles the door.

'Alone at last, Potter,' she says, turning around and slipping her wand down the front of her shirt in one brisk movement. She's wearing Muggle clothes again. At least she looks somewhat decent this time. The month she was in her mesh phase was a trying one.

She looks very tired.  
  
'You could just report in at the meetings,' Harry points out. 'Maybe sleep in that way?'

Malfoy doesn't say anything, just throws something hard at Ron's bed. Before Harry can ask her if she's quite mad, Scabbers squeaks, and burrows underneath the pillows.

'There is a rat,' says Malfoy, with a very pleased, very pointed smile, 'in the Order.'

'--Don't abuse Scabbers,' Harry says, rather half-heartedly. He can't bring himself to like rats, or mice, or even Philomene, the little ferret Malfoy bought to replace her old familiar. Ron says Philly's cute. Then again, Ron also says that Malfoy should have married Bill, even though he was _unbearable_ the one summer they dated. His judgement is extremely suspect where Malfoy is concerned.

 

**Author's Note:**

> wow 'Alternate Universe - Longer Hair' isn't a tag? I'm shocked.


End file.
